New Study Blames “Bad Bosses” on Lack of Training

Today’s post is courtesy of i4cp, Inc. (Institute for Corporate Productivity, formerly the Human Resource Institute)

Almost everyone has a “bad boss” story, but a new survey conducted by i4cp suggests that “bad bosses” may not be to blame. Chances are, they never got the supervisory training they needed.

The study found that, of the 338 companies polled, nearly half (47%) do not have a new-supervisor training program. And even where such programs are in place, most companies don’t measure their effectiveness.

However, for many organizations, help is on the way. Among the companies that don’t have a training program in place for new supervisors, 45% plan to implement one within the next 12 months.

“Companies know they should do better in this area,” says Jay Jamrog, Senior Vice President of Research at i4cp, “and many have big plans for improvement. But the bottom line is that companies are moving faster than ever, and in the U.S. we are experiencing talent shortages. Many workers are given supervisory jobs they didn’t expect and then are just thrown out there to sink or swim. It’s no wonder so many wind up floundering.”

For the organizations that already have such a program, most (77%) consider it important enough to make it mandatory, and most pour considerable resources into it. Fully 83% of those conducting training for new supervisors do so for nine or more hours.

The most common subjects include introducing managers to management and leadership principles and providing them with practical knowledge of the company’s policies and procedures.

But even among those that have such programs, 57% say they don’t measure their effectiveness. “A lot of companies just go on faith,” adds Jamrog. “Admittedly, measuring the effectiveness of these programs is difficult, but still it’s amazing that so many companies don’t even try. Can you imagine if we applied the same principle to quality control in our manufacturing processes? We’d make some of the worst products on earth.”

The training approaches used by companies fall into two main areas. Forty-three percent use “phased learning experiences” offered over the course of the first year of the new supervisor’s job, while 32% provide a brief overview of basic information on responsibilities such as safety, payroll and computer systems. A full 65% of companies keep the training in-house, using managers or company trainers to conduct courses.

The New Supervisor Training Program Practitioner Consensus Survey was conducted by i4cp, in conjunction with HR.com, in August 2007.

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) is focused on being the premier institute to improve workforce productivity and bottom-line results within corporations. i4cp has been created on a foundation of four primary offerings: research, community, tools and technology.